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Is Ruben Amaro Jr. A Good General Manager?

PHILADELPHIA - JULY 30: Ruben Amaro, general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies watches batting practice before a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citizens Bank Park on July 30, 2011 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

By Spike Eskin

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – It hasn’t been a banner offseason for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Ruben Amaro can’t be blamed for not wanting to overpsend for players like Josh Hamilton and Shane Victorino, but even the low-cost (in dollars) moves have been questionable.

Delmon Young has a shaky off-the field history along with an on-the-field history that isn’t terribly impressive. Amaro says he’ll play right field, which doesn’t seem like a prudent decision. Michael Young hasn’t played third base very often, and when he has, he’s done it poorly. He’s getting older and had probably his worst season in 2012.

Now that it looks like the roster is pretty much set for 2013, the questions about just what kind of job Ruben Amaro has done and is doing as general manager are growing louder.

For years, I believed that Ruben Amaro was misunderstood. The people who hired him had a huge financial investment in the team, and doing well was important to recouping that. They couldn’t be morons. They had to know what they were doing. They couldn’t have hired an idiot, or someone so grossly unqualified for the job that it’s laughable. Someone so mired in the ways of the past and fooled by the illusion of experience that almost every move seems designed to take the team backwards, not forwards.

That couldn’t be happening, right?

Of course, now I feel like an idiot.

…

And I can begin rooting for the end of Amaro’s tenure in Philly with a full heart and two tiny fistfuls of revenge.

In a sense, things have been going backward since the parade down Broad Street on Halloween 2008 ended. In 2009, the Phillies returned to the World Series, but were bested. In 2010, they bowed out a round earlier. In 2011, they were on the wrong end of one of the better postseason pitching duels in history in the NLDS. In 2012, they didn’t even have the chance.

And now, here we sit, spectators to the composing of another bizarre chapter in one of the strangest rebuilding parables ever told: the 2012-13 offseason. The roster has been transformed, through age as well as acquisition, into one that harnesses but a sliver of its former potency.

Is this offseason a case of Amaro not wanting to throw more weight on what could be a sinking ship? In that case, the moves could make more sense and be considered prudent. But it can’t be ignored that he is responsible for building the ship itself.